When food is to be cooked, in order that food having high nutritive values should be allowed to be taken in, it is preferred that cell disruption in the food during the cooking is suppressed so that outflow of the nutrients contained in the food is avoided. When food is cooked by using an oven (a cooking device), heat is conducted to the core of the food into an appropriate temperature in a high temperature atmosphere and hence outflow of the nutrients from the food is avoided.
In recent years, with increasing desire for health, cooking devices utilizing steam have been proposed in which outflow of the nutrients of food is avoided and at the same time fat is eliminated (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-84059). The cooking device described in the Japanese Patent Application includes: a housing provided with a heating chamber the front side of which is opened and which heats contained food; a door opening and closing the front side open part of the heating chamber; a magnetron heating the heating chamber; and a steam generating container supplying steam to the heating chamber. Then, cooking is achieved in a state that high temperature steam fills the heating chamber.
In the steam generating container, an ejection opening ejecting into the heating chamber the steam of the water evaporation chamber is provided in an upper part of the steam generating chamber (the water evaporation chamber) having a water supply port in a lower part. A baffle plate is provided between the water supply port and the ejection opening which are opened in the water evaporation chamber. When water having been supplied through the water supply port to the water evaporation chamber boils and runs up, the baffle plate prevents the boiling water from reaching the upper part so as to avoid a situation that the boiling water is ejected through the ejection opening into the heating chamber.